South Branch intelligencer. [volume] (Romney, Va. [W. Va.]) 1830-1896, 1887-04-29

n Glance at the Wholesale
Trade In New York.



Part OF Wall street is not Wall street
at all. Down by the ferry, around Front
and Water Streets there is no stock and
bond favor whatever. Things down
there smack Of China, OF Java, of Brazil
and Of Cuba, but OF nothing nearer
home. Down there the big men in tea,
coffee. sugar and molasses rule the
roast. II there is any boarding house
keeper who wants to buy these table
luxurics by tho ton or the cargo, just
drop around, but otherwise stick to the
corner grocery. Taerc is where the
solid men Of New York and Brooklyn
nimbly hunt the spry sixpcnce. At
home these heavy citizens are never
asked to do anything, but down there
on the market they skip around like
Wallets to Mammon. With a painful of
green coffee beans in one hand and lit
tic paper Of Oolong in the other, they
jump to servo their masters whims.
1t seems funny TO sec the millionaire
pumping long fiat stick up and down
through the bungholc Of hogshead of
molasses on the street, running his dia-
mond-studdcd fingers along it and
scooping the. saccharine treacle into his
gold-pluggcd mouth. He is an expert,
but he cannot lick his fingers any better
than the rude, uptutored urchin who
steals a lesson at it when the expert
turns his back.
Over on the office steps stands a man
whose trotters will by and by be spurn-
ing the dust of Central avenue from their
hoofs. Look ut him sitting coffee. How
complaccntly he rattles the sieve Look
at him watt it from side to side, and toss
its contents up and down like "a pancake.
What is he doinga Blowing the chaff
out of it. It's sample and the pur-
chasing jobber is at hand. He has lust
roasted few handfuls in his own little
rooster in the office, for he himself bought
the coffee green.
Four times year-in March, June,
September and Deoember-the Dutch
government sells coffee at public auction
in Padang. The Dutchman there meas
ures his coffee by the picul Q36 pounds)
and values it by the guilder fifty cents
SO the New Yorker just figures on the
equivalent OF, say, twenty cents pound
and cables his limit to his agents. and
they bid the Dutch auclioneer so much
and no more. The day after the sale
everybody in the trade knows who
bought and what he bought at. The CO.
nundrum then is: What profit is he
satisfied With What will he sell atl
One funny thing about the Java cof-
fee business is that there are about five
times as many pounds of it sold over the
grocer's counter, is there are grown on
the island. AS Mark Twain SAYS, this
would look like discrepancy or hiatus.
but we've got to accept facts as we find
them.
Coffee from Padang to New York.
after voyage of 100 days. arrives more
or less sweatcd. This part is all
skinned off in Brooklyn warehouses and
afterward sold as "skimmings" to Job
bers at reduced price. 1t was never
known to go any further than that, be-
cause the retailers never sell you any.
thing but "pure old Government JAVA
In the testing room of q large firm of
tea brokers in Water street half a dozen
men of critical palates sit around re.
volving table slipping tea from delicate
china cups. It's tea party, but what
tea tablet No cloth, no milk, no sugar,
no gossip! A circle of cups outside of
ring OF canisters, copper kettle of boil
ing water, and that's all-strictly bust
ness. They sip and they smack and they
spit. A brass spittoon, as high rs the
table, and looking like German from
bone Strengthened out receives all the
elected liquor.
Some time ago New York started
tea auctions every week and Chicago is
following suit, but tea is a commodity
that loses its flavor very easily, and Chi
cago's unsavory origin probably has a
good deal to do with her failure TO rival
the metropolis as tea mart. The Wall
street auctions have become quite social
affair. Coffee, sandwiches, and napkins
are passed around among the guests.
When they sit down facing the auction.
GERS rostrum, pencils and catalogues in
hand, you might easily imagine them
group OF reporters sitting in execution on
the latest imported lecturer. 1t is an or
binary thing for 10, 600 half chests to be
sold. This means 40, 900 pounds, and
when a couple of spoonfuls make a nice
cup of ten, look at the delight in store
for our grandmothefs New York Sun
'n1sfHnafnI.no T.. ~